In the biggest media manipulation since Sarah Palin quit her day job so she could be of greater use to mankind, Harold Camping now states that he is “flabbergasted” that the world did not end on Saturday. I guess he wasn’t as surprised as Robert Fitzpatrick, one of Camping’s followers, who spent his entire life savings spreading the word of the end of days. Fitzpatrick stated, “I do not understand why nothing has happened.”
I understand why nothing happened. Because those who believed in Camping’s message were fools. Because they fell prey to another preacher who stepped over the line and made a prediction that could be proven false, unlike the usual claptrap that nobody can prove one way or the other. Like the idea that god exists at all.
It’s funny how that works. You can spout all you want about who god is, what he wants, how he wants it, and people will listen and believe.
God is an elephant headed fat boy. We’ll call him Ganesh.
God is a horny old man with a beard. We’ll call him Rajneesh.
God is a happy old man in the sky, but we don’t know his name. We’ll call him God the Father.
God is his son. We’ll call him Jesus.
God is a bird high above. We’ll call him the Holy Spirit.
I could go on and on, but what is the point. Well, the point is that we delude ourselves just to the point where we are comfortable, and sometimes we get caught with our pants down, like Harold Camping.
The fact is that most of religion is a farce, and those who believe in Catholicism, Hinduism or any -ism are just fooling themselves. Yet when it gets overt and people start to say really stupid stuff we all laugh. Why laugh at Harold but give the rest of them a pass? The Pope make edicts that affect how a large portion of the planet practices birth control, yet many give him control over their reproductive rights. Muslim clerics call for the death of Salman Rushdie, because of words. Many people listen and agree. Calls for jihad end in the downing of the World Trade Center. When are we going to learn?
My feeling is that we are better off without religion. I know a lot of us need a crutch, some kind of belief that makes it easier to deal with the fact that life here on earth is composed of a lot of suffering and there may not be a light at the end of the tunnel. But face facts, folks, religion is not the answer. There’s not a lot of difference between Camping, the Pope, the Imams, the Yogis, or the Rain Dancers. It’s just a matter of how delusional you allow yourself to be.